Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Ant-Man’ Goes a Little Small With Its Big Opening

It would be easy to label the opening weekend for Ant-Man a failure. After all, it’s significantly lower than the openings for recent Marvel Studios movies and it’s a good $130 million less than the three-day opening Avengers: Age of Ultron had a few months ago. But let’s not be so hasty. Its opening numbers may not have blown anyone away, but Ant-Man’s box office arrival is textbook Marvel.

Film

Weekend

Per Screen

1

Ant-Man

$58,040,000

$15,052

$58,040,000

2

Minions

$50,200,000 (-56.6)

$11,645

$216,692,000

3

Trainwreck

$30,200,000

$9,563

$30,200,000

4

Inside Out

$12,660,000 (-34.0)

$3,573

$306,363,000

5

Jurassic World

$11,400,000 (-37.2)

$3,657

$611,174,000

6

Terminator Genisys

$5,400,000 (-61.0)

$1,919

$80,640,000

7

Magic Mike XXL

$4,500,000 (-53.0)

$1,746

$58,636,000

8

The Gallows

$4,005,000 (-59.2)

$1,472

$18,007,000

9

Ted 2

$2,700,000 (-52.3)

$1,707

$77,457,000

10

Mr. Holmes

$2,480,000

$6,857

$2,489,000

With an opening weekend of $58 million, Ant-Man had the second lowest opening weekend of any Marvel Studios movie, slightly edging out 2008’s The Incredible Hulk (which opened to $55 million). That may sound disappointing, but consider this: Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger both opened to $65 million before going on to have respectable, but not astonishing, final grosses. It was only with the sequels that they became box office juggernauts. This is not to say that Ant-Man 2 will be huge (or that it will even get made), but it does say that the level of interest in Ant-Man is similar to the initial interest in several of the company’s biggest heroes. Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy are the outliers, the flukes. This is traditional Marvel. Unless it totally plummets next week, Ant-Man should be able to reach $150 million minimum, which is respectable enough. International grosses will keep it in the black.

And beyond all of that, a movie about freakin’ Ant-Man topped the box office. That’s kind of impressive and totally insane in any capacity.

Ant-Man is going to grab all of the headlines and stir up the discussion, but Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer’s rom-com Trainwreck also opened this week, coming in third place with an impressive $30 million. In fact, it’s the second highest opening in Apatow’s career, coming in only a few hundred grand shy of Knocked Up. If word of mouth is strong (and it should be), expect Trainwreck to follow a similar trajectory and clear $100 million with ease. After all, there are theaters full of people who could use a break from the superheroes and an R-rated, female-driven comedy is just what they need.

Meanwhile, Minions fell 56 percent from its opening weekend, but its opening weekend was so big that it still made $50 million over the past three days. That may not be as strong as Universal was hoping, but it’s strong enough. The film is still on track to clear $300 million in about 10 days or so, although $400 million may be a slightly tougher battle than we previously predicted. In comparison, Inside Out has been performing less erratically, crossing $300 million at its own pace. Minions will certainly outgross it, but this feels like a showdown between hype and a movie that people actually, genuinely, truly like.